I sat down in one of the rival establishments and ordered hot chocolate. The tables were filling up with laughing youngsters of all hues and accents—students—how I envied them their gay freedom. There was true irresponsibility for you, and yet Beryl had accused me of just that. And yes, here I was, alone, answerable to no-one while across the cobbled street my son was being looked after by one of my own “guardian angels.” I weighed up all she had done for me, how steadfastly she had stood by me—in the light of this new possibility that I may lose her to another try at a life of her own—I appreciated her more sharply, more surely, because of that.
There was a shout of laughter as an entertainer sashayed into the middle of the road. A simple-minded young man on roller-skates, grinning inanely and playing an accordion, he revelled in the applause from his captive audience even when it was his toppling, wobbling near-tumbles in his idiotic attempt to play, dance and skate all at once that drew the loudest claps and cheers. He slewed up to my table, managing on top of all his other accomplishments to hold out a greasy hat. I tossed in some coins then looked back across the road. I was almost too late. I just caught a glimpse of the two people I had followed, disappearing round the corner with an old man, bent and shuffling, but whose general build and shape of head were vaguely familiar. Before I could dash across, a great snake of girls and boys blocked my way—they were doing the hokey-cokey, waving college pennants and collecting tins—it was some kind of Rag Day.
By the time I’d found my way round them, my prey had disappeared into the labyrinth of small, squalid streets. Like Esmeralda and her goat, like Quasimodo and his hump. It would be well-nigh impossible to pick up their tracks and, anyway, I was cold and once more very troubled in my mind.
I slipped into a small shop and bought myself a jet necklace in order to have an excuse should Mabiche arrive home before me.
The Necklace
by Gabrielle Parker
The shopkeeper glanced up from the tray of rings he was sorting on the counter and noticed the woman outside looking in his window.
She did not hold his attention for long: middle-aged, probably English, plain, rather dowdy. A tourist, window-shopping—lâcher les vitrines, as they called it here in Paris. He returned to his jewellery and began to polish, lovingly, an antique circlet of gold set with rubies.
A few minutes later, he replaced the ring in its green velvet nest and looked again towards the street. She was still there and something in the intensity of her gaze attracted his curiosity. What could she be staring at so…avidly? Ah, yes, the jet necklace! Now, he looked more closely and observed that the woman, though dressed in a non-descript fashion, carried a good leather handbag and wore a Liberty scarf tucked in the neck of her sweater. He recognised the peculiar quality of these accessories from his many years in London, plying his trade as an apprentice in New Bond Street, long before he had taken a lease on this little shop on the Left Bank.
He had an instinctive urge to rub his hands together gleefully in anticipation of making a sale: but he restrained this impulsive ethnic gesture, so often mocked on the stage. He was no Shylock nor yet a Fagin. He had his own premises here in the Rue d’Ivry, alongside the shops of Frenchmen, Italians, Vietnamese—he was Cosmopolitan. Proudly, he embraced with his eyes his good, well-displayed stock. True, the rent was high and the doorbell did not sound continuously—but he was not desperate—he would make a sale sooner or later—the day was young.
However…he was a businessman. A little encouragement would not be out of place. He went over to the window. He moved a few knick-knacks not too close to the necklace—then contrived to catch the eye of this potential customer. Maybe he would favour her with one of his rare smiles.
He did indeed look into her eyes, but his half-formed smile froze as he saw her shock at being caught in the middle of a very private emotion. She visibly pulled herself together and walked briskly away.
Ah well, thought the old Jew, you can’t win them all.
And yet, for the next hour, he was haunted by her expression which had hinted at a much more interesting character than he had first supposed.
I should know, at my age, he sighed to himself. First impressions, exteriors, mean nothing. Every person has a story, a past…I wonder what she….
But his silent reflections were interrupted—a crowd of students burst in. One had some beads he hoped to sell. Rubbish, of course. The shopkeeper sent them off to a nearby street market, insulted that such inferior goods should have been on his counter for even a few minutes. The young people left, unperturbed, laughing, shouting insults to his race—but without real viciousness.
He rubbed at the glass top of the counter as though to erase the disagreeable touch of paste and plastic and then was aware of the woman facing him across his gold and silver displays. She must have entered as the students left, gliding silently through the boisterous crowd, thus negating the warning effect of his door bell. She looked nervous and explained in a rush, Monsieur, je n’ai pas beaucoup de Français mais….”
Glad to be able to soothe her alarm he said, “I speak English, Madame…what can I do for you?”
“The black necklace in the window…there, on the left….”
“Ah, yes, Madame…the jet…excuse me, I will show you.”
He lifted it onto the counter on its velvet tray and watched her face, hoping to judge from her expression how much she wanted it. Wanted it! This look indicated much more. She needed this bauble. In her eyes was intense pain, dreadful memory…an anguish of the soul. Instinctively, he named a figure. Her hand clutched at her scarf.
“Oh…” she said softly and it was almost a moan of despair.
The shopkeeper had for many years forgotten that he possessed a heart. His own story, his past, was full of personal sadness. He had thought himself permanently hardened against life. But this woman—there was something about her. Though her hair was a faded brown, it held, when the sun caught it, a hint of the rich chestnut it must once have been. Though her skin was lined, it was unblemished and must once have been the real peaches and cream that only the English can produce. And those eyes—there was no ordinary story behind them, he was sure.
An idea flashed into his mind—after all, most of his goods were second-hand.
“Madame has seen this necklace before…?” he inquired.
“Ah yes,” she breathed. “Many years ago—here, in this same shop window.”
The shopkeeper was disconcerted. So, his first idea was way off the mark—she had never owned a necklace like this one, thinking she recognised it. She had wanted one badly at some time and she yearned for it now. But this necklace….
“Many years ago,” she repeated, and it was obvious she had become oblivious of his presence and was re-living her memories. It was obvious because of the tender and private tone of her voice but also because of the transformation of her physical presence.
“Robert and I were just married, and his father paid for our honeymoon here in Paris. We had very little spare cash so we just wandered about….”
She turned to make a graceful gesture towards the chestnut trees outside as though they represented all the streets of Paris. The sun again glanced off her hair and brought out the underlying reddish tones, her uplifted face seemed suddenly smoother, more tranquil—her eyes sparkled as she spoke the name of her loved one.
“Robert said that when he had made his fortune he would bring me back and buy me anything I wanted out of the window of any shop….”
She laughed, such an attractive laugh—indeed, her voice was altogether lovely, rather low and husky for an Englishwoman.
The old Jew also appreciated her even white teeth and the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“And the thing that most took my fancy was this necklace…it was so…different. Amongst all the shiny diamonds and emeralds—black can be so dull—but this….”
She touched the beads lovingly.
“This has a life of its
own that shines through.”
She looked at the shopkeeper as though suddenly aware of his presence, embarrassed.
“Robert, who knew about such things, explained that it was probably the most costly object in the window…but he still held to his promise that one day….”
To the shopkeeper’s dismay, her beautiful voice broke off in a sob and she fumbled in her handbag for a handkerchief. In her distress she also pulled out a photograph which fluttered down behind the counter. The shopkeeper bent down and groped for it under the showcase. As he handed it back, he saw that it was the likeness of a young sailor.
“Your husband?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
She drew herself up proudly and seemed to summon up all her courage.
“He was killed on the Yangtse River in 1949 when his ship tried to rescue the Amethyst. We had been married less than a year. His family was against it…they accepted it grudgingly…but, after his death, they cut me off completely.”
The shopkeeper was not equipped to deal with such tragic dignity. He could not find a way to express his sympathy. Except….
He pushed the necklace towards her and named a figure ten times less than his original price.
“Oh, no….” she cried, but her hand caressed the beads, the symbol of her lost love.
“Please,” begged the old shopkeeper, and felt the wrath of his ancestors at his betrayal.
“You are so…kind.” She breathed. “It’s like Fate, isn’t it, that the necklace should still be here five years later?”
The shopkeeper gave her a sharp look—after all, this was 1982. For the first time, he seemed to recognise something else in her eyes—not a vacancy exactly—but a strange, far-away quality. Ah, so she was…not quite…right—this poor woman. He glanced away in embarrassed distress. Looking in the window now were a girl and boy, arms around each other, nodding at the betrothal rings—young, in love—it was all there in their smiling faces as it always would be for lovers, as it always had been. He looked back at his customer. She too had been young, strong, healthy of mind, loving and beloved.
She shall have her necklace, he thought. And who am I to explain that this is a very modern design—an original, only a couple of years old—for her, it is the necklace that was promised her by her young sailor husband.
* * * *
The woman turned the corner into the Rue de la Paix. She waved her parcel in triumph as the young man came to meet her.
“Good pickings, Bob!” she laughed and her voice was strident, harsh. “The old goat was a pushover. Now we can buy you those silk shirts, you gorgeous boy!”
* * * *
The old shopkeeper mused over his cash register. He felt warm and benevolent. He had brought fulfilment and comfort to a tormented soul. His hands, out of his control, made their involuntary rubbing gesture. And she would never know the necklace was not jet but French glass….
* * * *
In their hotel room the woman and her gigolo tipped out the contents of her handbag and gloated over the rings she had deftly swept inside while the old Jew retrieved the sailor’s picture.
Chapter 23
Mabiche had never asked me for money. Her “allowance,” instigated by Jacques, had been paid monthly into her bank account. The company accountants had long ago been instructed to augment it yearly according to the Cost of Living Index. No modification had been made at the time of her marriage: she was regarded rather as an unofficial shareholder, benefiting from the profits even when she had removed herself from active participation in my affairs. Jacques told me that he had once discovered she had been helping one of her brothers out of a financial difficulty. Realising that this had made a great hole in her savings, he had come to some arrangement with the young man, organising for him a more formal loan, and replacing Mabiche’s “capital.” I suspected that chunks of it would continue to be used up in similar situations within her family, but I never interfered. I was secure in the absolute belief that I would always have enough income to cover her living expenses as well as my own, and I was not sufficiently money-orientated on my own behalf, let alone my satellites’, to consider making any changes in the way we conducted our affairs.
So it took me by surprise when Mabiche sat down one evening opposite me in the drawing room after dinner and without even opening her work basket, told me that a friend of hers needed help urgently.
I took out an Aran sweater I was knitting for Michel. I felt I was going to need something to soothe my nerves in the conversation to come.
Mabiche, flustered and red of face, followed my example and pulled out a small cushion she was embroidering.
“He’s ill, you see,” she said. “And in a rather difficult position as regards Social Security…he really needs to have some medical tests arranged quickly—and privately.”
“A…friend…you say,” I murmured.
“Someone I’ve known quite a long time,” she said.
My mind went back to the scene a few days ago—the thin, bent figure disappearing with her round the corner. Was it not then, after all, a romantic connection. Could it be another relative trying to sponge on her…but why, this time, should she be trying to involve me? Did she want me to help her out of an intolerable situation? Could it be some kind of blackmail? Suddenly I wanted to protect her—but I felt I must tread carefully.
“What sort of tests?” I asked. “I didn’t think there were great long waiting lists here in France for such matters—not like in England on the National Health. From what I read in the papers, France is blessed with enough, if not too many, doctors per head of population.”
“So—you read those sort of papers,” she said, biting off a thread with her strong though rather yellow teeth.
I wondered at such a strange remark. Had she decided that she had bitten off more than she could chew? Did she regret trying to involve me? Had I let her down by being too hesitant, so that now she felt it necessary to change the subject? I knew she disapproved of my combing the more lurid press for ideas for stories and tried not to listen when I read out extracts about the sudden wave of brutal and unexplained crimes in some previously quiet and respectable neighbourhoods in the banlieue. She had been horrified at my second-hand accounts of robberies, whole apartments cleared of furniture in broad daylight. She had shuddered at a recent incident concerning the mysterious murder of an Englishwoman living alone, assassin as yet unidentified, nor yet the motive. She was trembling now, I noticed, and I hated myself for putting her on the rack like this.
“You see,” she went on, “there are problems with his Carte d’Identité. Plus the fact that he hates to admit just how ill he is. Nothing has been diagnosed as yet, but—he gets these terrible dizzy spells and attacks of sweating. He hasn’t told anyone else—because of his job—it’s so important for him to hang on here….”
I had not seen her so upset since Fred died.
“He’s such a terrible grey colour—and in the last few months I’ve seen such a change….”
I felt that my heart would pound out of my body, that I would burst with the sound of it in my ears. Suddenly I knew who she was telling me about. I stared at her, my hands stilled, the wool and needles in a dreadful tangle on my lap.
She nodded.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But I gave my word I wouldn’t tell you he was here—and in this awful state, I didn’t want to risk upsetting him any more. He’s working for the Bernaud Group.”
“Ah!” I gasped. “Well, I knew he was a Francophile—but—why….”
“He is so afraid of your feelings. He did not find out about Michel for a long time. Then when he was coming round to the necessity of—confronting you—he became ill.”
“Where….”
She shook her head. “I promised him faithfully I wouldn’t tell you where he is living—I think he is ashamed.”
I stood up, reducing the likelihood of Michel’s sweater ever being completed to nil.
“The
se tests….” I began.
“I’ve had a word with Doctor Cueille,” she said, cramming her own work back in the basket. “There’s a unit at Bicètre—he knows one of the surgeons—it’s just a matter of—arranging things….”
“So—it’s not just a matter of money, is it?” I said.
“Would you—could you—see him?” she asked timidly.
I gripped the mantelpiece and rested my face on my fist.
“I can’t, Mabiche—not yet,” I said. “But you do what you can for him—in my name.”
There was an Engagement Calendar over my desk. Dental appointments, rendez-vous with the hairdresser, business lunches, birthdays—were all noted on it. I couldn’t avoid seeing on my daily scan of it that September the fifth was marked as the day Robert Tardy was due to enter the Hôpital du Kremlin Bicètre. There it was in Mabiche’s handwriting and my eyes were drawn to it over and over as I sat writing about the unfortunate Miss Peasbody.
The First Day of Summer
by Gabrielle Parker
Miss Peasbody leaned on the railings of the tiny balcony and gloried in the sunshine. At last she understood what everybody meant when they enthused about Continental weather. For the first time in weeks, she felt a glimmer of hope. No matter that behind her was a poky little apartment badly in need of repairs and redecoration. She looked down on the street, so peaceful and quiet even though this was a suburb of that great metropolis, Paris. True, the flat had many drawbacks—a loo, for instance as black as any hole of Calcutta, with no outside wall, so difficult to keep sweet and fresh. Shutters that clattered on windy nights because their hinges had rusted away. But—there was this balcony—and across the road, a green bank with a bed of budding roses and topped by a lush green profusion of trees, blurring the main road beyond. The problems were still with her—the taps that leaked and needed adjustments she could not fathom. The lonely, sleepless nights when she lay listening to every creak and footfall. Until today, Miss Peasbody had resigned herself to her fate, taking it for granted that things would go from bad to worse because she felt she was being justly punished.
With Men For Pieces [A Fab Fifties Fling In Paris] Page 18
